Generative AI use among game developers dropped seven percentage points year-over-year in 2026, according to data from the Game Developer Collective and Omdia.
“Use of generative AI among game developers has declined after rising sharply in 2025, according to new data from the Game Developer Collective and Omdia. The survey shows 29% of developers reported using generative AI tools in early 2026, compared with 36% during the same period in 2025.”
Not saying you’re wrong about there being a bias but also I suspect use is actually dropping off
I’m currently in game dev school. Many people here absolutely hate AI and refuse to even learn about using it. Of the few that are using AI they’re embarrassed about it. It’s also mostly used to generate code when a designer or artist needs some code and was never taught anything about programming. The code tends to be a disaster and because they don’t know how to fix it they get mad at the AI for giving them nonsense and mad at themselves for not just learning to code basic stuff. I haven’t seen anyone use AI for anything art related yet
People don’t become game devs for money. We’re artists looking to express ourselves in a human way to other humans. Regurgitron 9000 does not help us produce human relatable stuff and it certainly doesn’t help us express ourselves
Well, we’re talking about game DEVELOPERS here, so of course the generative AI use will be mainly, if not always code generation. So I don’t even know why you’re bringing up any other kind of genAI.
LLMs are great at writing code because they’re designed for languages - and writing code is essentially a language, expressing instructions.
If you get nonsense code from the AI… Then you didn’t use it right. You can’t just tell it to write your game and expect the model to extrapolate your specific needs and wants on a whim. You need to be precise, and know what result you want.
People don’t become game devs for the money.
Oh, who are you kidding? A majority of game developers - as in, engineers, not designers - are in it because it was an available job in a language/framework they’re familiar with. Given a majority of game dev work IS Regurgitron 12K, even without AI (please don’t tell me your artistic goal is to create the 98374516th gatcha game with mostly naked women with impossible body ratios). Very, very few engineers get to work on the big, actually artistic titles.
This is incredibly incorrect on basically every front my goodness please be a troll…
I’m just going to focus on one aspect: Not even a “software developer” is limited to just programmers
Wait hold on you seem to like AI:
Your insistence that only people who code are developers is factually incorrect, ignores how much design work can include coding, and the way you keep reasserting it is insulting.
Designers and asset artists are still developing a game without coding it. Even the music in something like Rift of the NecroDancer constitutes level design, and in most cases music still can be used for conveying critical information if not just tone. It’s all still developing a game.
Getting into game dev for the money is genuinely a bad idea, as your odds are terrible. There was a famous talk in the indie boom that showed you were mathematically better off opening a Subway franchise than getting into game dev. Technical roles definitely come with a pay cut compared to what you can find elsewhere (and I know that from experience), not to mention less job stability, so you’re taking that job because you like the work and the end product more.
That alone is problematic. Just never ever reference a Quantic Dreams game.
EDIT: David Cage, the director of these games thinks female empowerment is a woman getting sexually assaulted multiple times and fighting their way out. That happens to a single character in Heavy Rain. Oh and one of the endings they get is jumping out a burning building to their death. And this is over a period of like two days.
I mean, famously the studio rendered a nude model of Eliot Page against their consent for Beyond: Two Souls (a game that is already stupid for not telling a linear story; there was a future release that include a chronological story mode) that was never intended for the final version but left in the retail release for anyone to discover.
EDIT: I’m gonna mention this to stress the point that David Cage is awful. Don’t read this if you get trigger by assault. Despite all this according to Wikipedia, Page as of 2025 is set to produce a television adaptation.
Mention of assault.
One point in the story, Jodie tries to escape the institution she is living in to go to a bar. The character during this portion is underage. If the player successfully escapes, they are treated to a scene which older men at the bar assault Jodie.
Generative AI as in image generation, text generation, predictive text, Code Intellisense, AutoComplete, etc?
This is too vague. Not only is “Generative AI” not qualified/specified as to what actually counts under that label according to the article, this would realistically also rely on people voluntarily responding and being honest. This particular survey is probably going to attract more responses from people that hate “AI” in its current general sense than from people that actually use it.
Also, most people that currently work in the games industry are in art (digital painting, texture painting, 3d modeling, etc), so obviously most of them are going to say it will negatively effect games as a whole. Regardless of whether that is true or not, the impact of perceived “job security” by trying to influence executives/management by negatively responding to “Generative AI” surveys is enough to skew the data to the paint that I believe it does not actually reflect reality. In other words, I believe that negative responses are being given for reasons other than “the tool is not helpful or useful,” but instead “I hate the tool.” Much like how animation artists first responded to the computer replacing cel animation technique. The people that hated computers animation talked down on the computers not because it would make their job easier, but because they thought they would lose their job if they talked positively about it. The sad fact is that people will lose their job regardless, especially in the current game industry where you can make a huge hit successful game and still get fired.
Generative AI is a tool, just like PhotoShop or Visual Studio. Its not a particularly useful tool for most of the stuff it is marketed to do, but it does have some use cases where I find it is a helpful tool. Asking “In which file is XYZ struct defined?” or “Explain to me ZYX function and what it returns” when working with a codebase you didn’t write yourself or have a team of others working on can be genuinely helpful (especially if the actual people that wrote the code are not available to do that). However, asking it to write specialized code for you is going to be a bad time because it will almost certainly not work correctly.
If people put slop in their games; ANY type of slop; I’m gonna assume the whole thing was done with that little care. If a novel has a AI cover i am gonna assume the text is AI spam as well. Simple and easy. ;) If people wants to make mindless trash i hope it sells like trash.
Off topic, but I read books, and I can tell publishers leverage " judging a book by its cover" extremely well, because it is true, otherwise I couldn’t tell an academic edition or a general edition. A book with an AI cover is, in general, a bad idea, and it conveys low quality to the reader. Some open source books use AI to format an epub file; some use text recognition without professional formatting, and it is a disaster to read. You are better off getting an old pdf edition or paying a premium for a publisher’s modernised version.
The problem of genAI software is that it comes from non technical users. Ideally, knowing the logic of a program is necessary to even imagine one. They always show these nicey nicey flow-charts with logic and decision based pathways.
A non technical user will spit out a software that they wouldn’t know how to fix, don’t you think? And if fixing the software is more time consuming than writing it, the balance shifts towards manual work
AI is just another dot com bubble event. We still have websites, don’t you think? Most AI services are providing little to no value for the average person, but some are. I am willing to bet that these are going to be the survivors. As in every new technology driven revolution, I’d say. And with higher complexity comes higher automation rates. The current technology has more complexity, data and information than ever, hence automation is still there.
But who am i to tell.
The main difference between Ai and the .com bubble is that AI has it’s enshitification built in. It’s 2026; Tech companies are in unison degrading their products and engaging in anti-consumer practices that would not have happened in the .com era. Generative Ai tools will follow a regular tech “disruption cycle.” it will be sold at a discount to game devs as a miracle tool and when they are dumb enough to de-skill the tech corpo oligarchs will raise the prices 500% and give the individual user a more neutered product compared to their own monopolies.
And with that aside what a waste of my life to throw away on the creative output of a machine. Especially with so many great human-made games out there. If every game in the future is made by a fucking AI, then I can just sit back and enjoy the human made backlog. Or search for communities of humans who still enjoy creating.
anti consumer practices that would not fly in the .com era
I was curious about the whole ordeal again, and even than corporations tried, and obtained, many things that we deem as good in comparison with the thing we have now, but 1999 -2001 laid the groudwork for the next social media revoltion (2005 - 2007) that brought us here. But the outlook on technology was more positive, overall, and we weren’t digital addicts wandering around the streets. But there are analogies here and there. I don’t think the AI bubble is a subprime like event.
In my eyes the AI bubble is an attempt of monopolization of all white collar industries by a the tech oligarch degenerates. Things will get increasingly worse if we let them.
Considering a lot of these corporations , including gaming services, all have the side project of moving their products to the cloud. I imagine they know the bubble is going to pop and their bet is to use the chaos to restructure as many services as possible as rent seeking.
True, but you wouldn’t know if it was generated text first and then edited/altered manually by a person to remove the telltale signs. You might think it was generated, maybe, but youd never know for sure, and wouldnt know if anything else was generated or not either.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Because of the backlash from gamers/consumer/the general public, or because it was detrimental to the production of their product?
it’s a survey. the backlash to using AI in games is deterrent enough for game devs to claim they’re not using it… I wouldn’t trust these reports.
Not saying you’re wrong about there being a bias but also I suspect use is actually dropping off
I’m currently in game dev school. Many people here absolutely hate AI and refuse to even learn about using it. Of the few that are using AI they’re embarrassed about it. It’s also mostly used to generate code when a designer or artist needs some code and was never taught anything about programming. The code tends to be a disaster and because they don’t know how to fix it they get mad at the AI for giving them nonsense and mad at themselves for not just learning to code basic stuff. I haven’t seen anyone use AI for anything art related yet
People don’t become game devs for money. We’re artists looking to express ourselves in a human way to other humans. Regurgitron 9000 does not help us produce human relatable stuff and it certainly doesn’t help us express ourselves
Well, we’re talking about game DEVELOPERS here, so of course the generative AI use will be mainly, if not always code generation. So I don’t even know why you’re bringing up any other kind of genAI.
LLMs are great at writing code because they’re designed for languages - and writing code is essentially a language, expressing instructions.
If you get nonsense code from the AI… Then you didn’t use it right. You can’t just tell it to write your game and expect the model to extrapolate your specific needs and wants on a whim. You need to be precise, and know what result you want.
Oh, who are you kidding? A majority of game developers - as in, engineers, not designers - are in it because it was an available job in a language/framework they’re familiar with. Given a majority of game dev work IS Regurgitron 12K, even without AI (please don’t tell me your artistic goal is to create the 98374516th gatcha game with mostly naked women with impossible body ratios). Very, very few engineers get to work on the big, actually artistic titles.
This is incredibly incorrect on basically every front my goodness please be a troll…
I’m just going to focus on one aspect: Not even a “software developer” is limited to just programmers
Wait hold on you seem to like AI:
Your insistence that only people who code are developers is factually incorrect, ignores how much design work can include coding, and the way you keep reasserting it is insulting.
Designers and asset artists are still developing a game without coding it. Even the music in something like Rift of the NecroDancer constitutes level design, and in most cases music still can be used for conveying critical information if not just tone. It’s all still developing a game.
Getting into game dev for the money is genuinely a bad idea, as your odds are terrible. There was a famous talk in the indie boom that showed you were mathematically better off opening a Subway franchise than getting into game dev. Technical roles definitely come with a pay cut compared to what you can find elsewhere (and I know that from experience), not to mention less job stability, so you’re taking that job because you like the work and the end product more.
Probably depends a lot on whether it’s an anonymous survey…
Guessing the image from “Detroit: Become Human” is because it’s a game about AI and not because it uses AI (since it came out in 2018).
That alone is problematic. Just never ever reference a Quantic Dreams game.
EDIT: David Cage, the director of these games thinks female empowerment is a woman getting sexually assaulted multiple times and fighting their way out. That happens to a single character in Heavy Rain. Oh and one of the endings they get is jumping out a burning building to their death. And this is over a period of like two days.
David “I don’t make games for f*gs” Cage
David “In my games, women are wh*res” Cage
I mean, famously the studio rendered a nude model of Eliot Page against their consent for Beyond: Two Souls (a game that is already stupid for not telling a linear story; there was a future release that include a chronological story mode) that was never intended for the final version but left in the retail release for anyone to discover.
EDIT: I’m gonna mention this to stress the point that David Cage is awful. Don’t read this if you get trigger by assault. Despite all this according to Wikipedia, Page as of 2025 is set to produce a television adaptation.
Mention of assault.
One point in the story, Jodie tries to escape the institution she is living in to go to a bar. The character during this portion is underage. If the player successfully escapes, they are treated to a scene which older men at the bar assault Jodie.
David “COCK AND BALL TORTURE” Cage
*that one scene inside night club in heavy rain :>
Looking also at the 2024 data, sounds more like fluctuation. Would need more data to see by those if it’s a tendency.
I feel like we can see the light at the end of tunnel, finally.
Generative Ai is Among Us.
Generative AI as in image generation, text generation, predictive text, Code Intellisense, AutoComplete, etc?
This is too vague. Not only is “Generative AI” not qualified/specified as to what actually counts under that label according to the article, this would realistically also rely on people voluntarily responding and being honest. This particular survey is probably going to attract more responses from people that hate “AI” in its current general sense than from people that actually use it.
Also, most people that currently work in the games industry are in art (digital painting, texture painting, 3d modeling, etc), so obviously most of them are going to say it will negatively effect games as a whole. Regardless of whether that is true or not, the impact of perceived “job security” by trying to influence executives/management by negatively responding to “Generative AI” surveys is enough to skew the data to the paint that I believe it does not actually reflect reality. In other words, I believe that negative responses are being given for reasons other than “the tool is not helpful or useful,” but instead “I hate the tool.” Much like how animation artists first responded to the computer replacing cel animation technique. The people that hated computers animation talked down on the computers not because it would make their job easier, but because they thought they would lose their job if they talked positively about it. The sad fact is that people will lose their job regardless, especially in the current game industry where you can make a huge hit successful game and still get fired.
Generative AI is a tool, just like PhotoShop or Visual Studio. Its not a particularly useful tool for most of the stuff it is marketed to do, but it does have some use cases where I find it is a helpful tool. Asking “In which file is XYZ struct defined?” or “Explain to me ZYX function and what it returns” when working with a codebase you didn’t write yourself or have a team of others working on can be genuinely helpful (especially if the actual people that wrote the code are not available to do that). However, asking it to write specialized code for you is going to be a bad time because it will almost certainly not work correctly.
If people put slop in their games; ANY type of slop; I’m gonna assume the whole thing was done with that little care. If a novel has a AI cover i am gonna assume the text is AI spam as well. Simple and easy. ;) If people wants to make mindless trash i hope it sells like trash.
Literal judging a book by its cover mention.
But I do agree that generative software proliferation can certainly lead to a flood of low-quality trash.
Off topic, but I read books, and I can tell publishers leverage " judging a book by its cover" extremely well, because it is true, otherwise I couldn’t tell an academic edition or a general edition. A book with an AI cover is, in general, a bad idea, and it conveys low quality to the reader. Some open source books use AI to format an epub file; some use text recognition without professional formatting, and it is a disaster to read. You are better off getting an old pdf edition or paying a premium for a publisher’s modernised version.
The problem of genAI software is that it comes from non technical users. Ideally, knowing the logic of a program is necessary to even imagine one. They always show these nicey nicey flow-charts with logic and decision based pathways. A non technical user will spit out a software that they wouldn’t know how to fix, don’t you think? And if fixing the software is more time consuming than writing it, the balance shifts towards manual work
AI is just another dot com bubble event. We still have websites, don’t you think? Most AI services are providing little to no value for the average person, but some are. I am willing to bet that these are going to be the survivors. As in every new technology driven revolution, I’d say. And with higher complexity comes higher automation rates. The current technology has more complexity, data and information than ever, hence automation is still there. But who am i to tell.
The main difference between Ai and the .com bubble is that AI has it’s enshitification built in. It’s 2026; Tech companies are in unison degrading their products and engaging in anti-consumer practices that would not have happened in the .com era. Generative Ai tools will follow a regular tech “disruption cycle.” it will be sold at a discount to game devs as a miracle tool and when they are dumb enough to de-skill the tech corpo oligarchs will raise the prices 500% and give the individual user a more neutered product compared to their own monopolies.
And with that aside what a waste of my life to throw away on the creative output of a machine. Especially with so many great human-made games out there. If every game in the future is made by a fucking AI, then I can just sit back and enjoy the human made backlog. Or search for communities of humans who still enjoy creating.
I was curious about the whole ordeal again, and even than corporations tried, and obtained, many things that we deem as good in comparison with the thing we have now, but 1999 -2001 laid the groudwork for the next social media revoltion (2005 - 2007) that brought us here. But the outlook on technology was more positive, overall, and we weren’t digital addicts wandering around the streets. But there are analogies here and there. I don’t think the AI bubble is a subprime like event.
In my eyes the AI bubble is an attempt of monopolization of all white collar industries by a the tech oligarch degenerates. Things will get increasingly worse if we let them.
They’re far too aware that this is a bubble, so I think they must know that they have a relatively short time window to make themselves necessary.
Considering a lot of these corporations , including gaming services, all have the side project of moving their products to the cloud. I imagine they know the bubble is going to pop and their bet is to use the chaos to restructure as many services as possible as rent seeking.
We’ll know when we see an excessive use of em dashes and single words after a period in an NPC’s dialogue text.
True, but you wouldn’t know if it was generated text first and then edited/altered manually by a person to remove the telltale signs. You might think it was generated, maybe, but youd never know for sure, and wouldnt know if anything else was generated or not either.